Peace, Love and Understanding
by beyond-the-twilight
Summary: "She was the one who got away; she was his dream but not his reality; she's the girl from his past and hopefully his future" - a brief look into their feelings for Rachel Berry. Finchel/St Berry/Kurtchel/Raine/Faberry/Pezberry/Puckleberry.


**A/N: This is for gleek06216, as I promised her I'd write a multi-chaptered story and I got so distracted with other things. This is an apology. I will write your story next! This is just a small one shot that I really felt like writing, explaining what Rachel means to some of the Glee club members. **

* * *

**Finn:**

She's the crazy girl with the voice that never fails to make him dizzy.

If it wasn't for her voice, he would never have noticed her, at least never _really _noticed her. He knew her before Glee, in the same way everyone at McKinley knew her, because she was the Queen of the Freaks and the biggest loser of them all, but he didn't _know _her. He didn't know her until there were drugs in his locker, and a forced membership to the stupidest group at McKinley: Glee Club.

And when he first met her, he still considered her a freak. Her eyes just screamed craziness and she wore the worst outfits he'd ever seen, and after listening to Quinn's venom for such a long time, he had started to believe it.

Rachel Berry just wasn't what he was used to. She wasn't blonde, she wasn't a cheerleader, she wasn't popular and she wasn't pretty. She wasn't Quinn Fabray.

He realized though that she was better in a lot of ways. She wasn't blonde but her hair smelt like strawberries. She wasn't a cheerleader but she had a voice that made his world stop. She wasn't popular but she'd do anything for the people she cared about. She wasn't pretty, but she was beautiful.

By the time he realized he'd fallen in love with her, he'd already lost her. He'd lost her to Jesse, just like he'd lost Quinn and he'd lost Drizzle, but this time, he wasn't going to give up without a fight. She was worth fighting for.

And he won her back. She held _his _hand and wore _his _name around her neck and everyone knew that Rachel Berry _belonged _to Finn Hudson, except Rachel Berry and Finn Hudson.

She got confused and scared, and maybe she was right to be confused and scared, because he never stood up for her, not in the way he had stood up for Quinn, and she had a right to be confused, because he always seemed to be the last one to praise her, even though he should have been the first. He got lazy and neglectful – he didn't stand up for her, or tell her the truth about Santana, or protect her like he should have now that he finally had her.

And even after all they'd been through together, she was still Rachel Berry. She was still the girl who wore plaid and spoke like she had swallowed a dictionary. She was still the girl with the crazy goals and the crazy mind, and the crazy, annoying attitude. She still wasn't blonde, she still wasn't a cheerleader, she still wasn't popular, she still wasn't pretty and she still wasn't Quinn Fabray.

She may have been better in a lot of ways, but she was too good for him. She had dreams and goals and a future that he'd never be a part of, so he let her go and watched her shine.

She was the one who got away.

* * *

**Jesse:**

She's everything he ever wanted. She was the girl with the voice that kept up with his; the girl with the smile who warmed his heart; the girl with the eyes that glittered like New York City at night; she was the girl he had always dreamed of but she was never, ever enough.

Meeting her that day in the music section was intentional, but not in the way everyone thought it was. He didn't know that Shelby was her mother; he didn't know anything about her apart from the fact that she had the voice of an angel and that she would inevitably be their biggest competition.

Singing with her had been a test. He had wanted to see just how good she was; to see if "Rain on my Parade" had been a fluke or if she really was that good (she was).

Transferring to McKinley and leading her back to Shelby? That was all part of the plan, devised when Shelby had realized that her lead singer had met her daughter. Falling in love with said daughter was not part of his plan, and smashing an egg on her forehead and breaking her heart was not part of the plan.

He was supposed to befriend her and lead her back to Shelby, and then back off, but her voice made his heart stop. He'd never seen someone with such a _passion _for singing. That's when he fell in love with her – it didn't matter that she was supposed to be the competition, and it didn't matter that she was his coaches daughter – it only mattered that she was beautiful and confident and had the voice of an angel.

He smashed the egg on her head and defected back to Vocal Adrenaline when he realized that he loved her. When he realized that he was getting in too deep; when he realized that he could never make it big if he stayed with a team like New Directions. He smashed the egg on her head, smashed his own heart, but didn't look back because he was just saving his dreams.

He had a choice: Rachel Barbra Berry or his dreams of superstardom.

He chose his dreams and even though he sometimes sees a brunette who looks just like her and his heart starts to ache, he knows it was the right choice because Rachel Berry was not his dream.

She was an angel, and a devil, a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. She was his mentor's daughter and the female equivalent of himself. She was hot chocolate on a cold winter's night, curling up in front of a fireplace, but she was also the burning hot embers that scalded your hands when you went to restock the fire.

She was everything he ever wanted but she wasn't enough. She was too young and too naïve to take to LA with him. She was too trustworthy and too quick to fall in love. She was too unintentionally manipulative and too easily upset. She was his dream girl but not in all the ways it truly counted. She was his musical soul-mate, and his twin soul, but not the love of his life.

She was his dream, but not his reality.

* * *

**Kurt: **

She's the competition. She's everything he wants to be, and a little better, because she's a _girl_. She has a voice he'd kill for, and legs that go on for miles, and the attitude to pull off the ugly outfits she insists on wearing. She's so much like him that it's uncanny, and it scares him most of the time. It's like a mirror image, and it terrifies him. It's that feeling you get when you go to a party and someone else is wearing the same outfit as you, only they're wearing it _better_.

He met her the weekend before the first day at McKinley High. He had been browsing through some discount racks at the mall and making disapproving comments, and she had been looking through the same rack for outfit ideas. Before he looked up, he could hear her little hmm's of approval and his first thought was that he needed to help her before she committed a fashion crime. That was until he looked up and saw that she was managing to rock those outfits in a way that seemed entirely impossible.

The first thing he noticed was her smile and the way it made her nose seem smaller and her eyes sparkle. She was _beautiful _in a non-stereotypical way, and he had to get to know her better. He invited her out for coffee and she said yes, and to this day, he still doesn't know why she'd accept a stranger's invitation for coffee.

Now, looking back, he wishes he hadn't opened his mouth because the diva takes everything he wants: solo's, Finn, _Blaine. _

He knows that he should love her in a way that he doesn't love anyone else because they are both destined for greater things, but every time he sees her skirt swish down the hall, and Finn's eyes follow her, he just wants to lock her in the bathroom so she misses Glee.

He makes an effort though, when he sees how alone she is. His stupid step-brother broke up with her and she looks near tears on most occasions and now, instead of wanting to burn her clothes, he just wants to hug her and let her know that everything is going to be okay.

That was even part of his plan until she got to Blaine first. Blaine, the boy he thinks he's in love with, seems to prefer Rachel's sparkling eyes and infectious laugh and long legs. He just wants to lock Rachel in a room and cut off all her hair so that Blaine will stop looking at her with a smile on his face. He wants Blaine to turn around and see that he's still standing right here, just waiting for Blaine to make a move on him.

It takes him a while to forgive Rachel for her brief relationship with Blaine, but he does forgive her, because there's something irresistible about Rachel Berry and her sad, sad eyes.

She was the competition – the worst enemy he's ever faced – but now she's one of the best friends he ever had.

* * *

**Blaine:**

She's the girl with the bedazzled microphones and the ridiculous outfits. She's the girl who thinks ticket stubs are a good idea for controlling underage drinking. She's the girl with the heart of gold, even if it doesn't always show through, and she's the girl with the sparkling smile.

He kissed her twice (although one of those kisses didn't really count) and went on one date with her before he decided that he really was gay. And he _is _gay, he's sure of it. Rachel's kiss felt nice, and he could imagine kissing her again, but she just wasn't the right fit. She didn't smell like Kurt, or talk like Kurt, or look like Kurt.

She was different from Kurt though, in all the ways it counted.

Kurt was his boyfriend and Rachel was his friend (one of his best friends, really, especially after they started hanging out alone) and he had a different relationship with each of them. He held Kurt's hand and they kissed softly when they had picnics in the park, and it's romantic in the way that only first relationships can be.

Rachel, though, was something else entirely. She was the one he turned to when he felt discriminated against (because he just couldn't talk to Kurt about it, especially after the death threats he had received) or when he needed a song to sing to impress Kurt. He held her when she cried, and made her see that she deserved better than Finn Hudson, and he sung to her every time she was sick.

He saw past her overbearing attitude, and saw the frightened girl hiding underneath it. He even managed to calm her down a little bit, and allowed her to embrace the teenage girl she had forgotten existed within herself. She saw past his brave façade and consoled him through everything. She was slow to anger, and even slower to judge, because she knew who he was and respected every little part of that.

Over the years, she becomes his best friend and his sister, one of the few people he couldn't live without. They sing karaoke together when drunk, and send each other silly text messages throughout the day, and they never go more than twelve hours without speaking to each other.

She gave him a friendship he didn't think was possible, and he would always be grateful for it. Even years later, when she was standing at the altar preparing to get married, he was still grateful to her. He watched her grow up and become a Broadway superstar and then an actress with a successful recording contract and a man that loved her. She supported him when Kurt moved to Paris to launch his fashion label and their subsequent break-up because the long distance relationship wasn't working out for them.

She was the girl who was always by his side. She was the girl who he would have _married _if he didn't like boys. She was his in a way that was much stronger and much deeper than a mere teenage relationship.

She was Rachel Berry.

* * *

**Quinn:**

She's the enemy. She's the one who has the power to rule McKinley High, and the one person who could put even Quinn Fabray in her place. She's the one that makes Quinn Fabray, HBIC, doubt herself and everything she thought she knew.

They meet for the first time in high school. They're assigned as partners for a chemistry assignment and although she's already on the Cheerio's, she's not a huge bitch (yet) so she's more than happy to be paired with the brunette who's the top of the class. She needs a good grade in all of her subjects so that her teachers will eventually recommend her for scholarships, preferably ones out of state because she _hates _Lima.

They work for weeks trying to build a skeleton, and she learns more about Rachel in those few weeks than she knows about anyone else in her life. She knows that the brunette wants to be on Broadway, and longs to live in New York. She knows that Rachel has two dads and really, really wants to meet her mum. She knows that Rachel can't cook but she can bake amazing cookies and cupcakes. She knows that Rachel's lips look very, very nice, and that Rachel smells like vanilla and coconut.

She respects Rachel. She respects her goals and her attitude and her dedication to achieving everything she puts her mind to. She respects her, and after just a couple of weeks, she _likes _her. And not just like, as in a friendly relationship, but _like _like, as a boy generally likes a girl.

She thinks, for just a second, that she and Rachel could have something magical. She even mentions her feelings to the brunette and says that she wants to try it – try them.

She kisses Rachel goodbye, and she doesn't realize that it will be their first and last kiss. She goes home and her father starts ranting about the amount of time she's been spending in the Berry household, and how she shouldn't be in the presence of such sinners.

The next day, she goes to school and ignores Rachel. She ignores the looks Rachel sends her in the hallways – the ones that make her feel incredibly guilty as her heart beats a little faster – until she can't take it anymore. Until she steals a slushy off of a slow moving jock and upends it in Rachel's face. Until she's shattered her heart, Rachel's heart and any chance of reconciliation.

That's not enough though, so she starts rumours and makes sure that Rachel Berry is buried at the bottom of McKinley's social pyramid. She makes sure that there's a slushy thrown in her face every single day and she makes sure that people whisper derogatory nicknames while Rachel is within hearing distance. She even encourages some of the cheerleaders to say those names to Rachel's face.

She knows it's a horrible thing to do, but she needs Rachel to fall off her radar. She needs Rachel to stop being so hard to ignore; she needs Rachel to just disappear because otherwise, she will inevitably cause Quinn's downfall.

Rachel Berry is the enemy. She repeats the mantra over and over again as she dates Finn and sleeps with Puck and dates Sam, and then comes full circle and dates Finn again. Rachel Berry is the enemy and she definitely doesn't like her.

Rachel Berry is the enemy, except she's really, really not. She's Quinn Fabray's weakness and that terrifies her.

* * *

**Santana:**

Rachel Berry is a pain. Her skirts are too short and her legs are too long. Her smile is too wide and her eyes are too sparkly. She's too smart and too eager to help. She's too full of herself and too over confident. It drives her _insane. _

She's known Rachel since primary school and they used to be friends (this was before Quinn Fabray and her quest to destroy the brunette, and it was definitely before Brittany Pierce and her pretty blonde hair and her love of linking pinkies). They used to have sleepovers and tell each other secrets and she thought Rachel was her best friend. She thought Rachel was beautiful and had a pretty voice and always knew the right thing to say. She was wrong though.

They got to high school and she joined the Cheerio's while Rachel joined every other club imaginable. They still had sleepovers and they gossiped about the other girls, and when she kissed a boy for the first time, Rachel was the first one she told. It all changed though when Rachel was paired with Quinn for a chemistry assignment.

Suddenly, they were spending less time together, and when they were together, Rachel was always gushing about Quinn. The blonde was all Rachel would talk about, and while it was kind of cute at first, it soon got really old. She just wanted her best friend back.

When she heard that Quinn had slushied Rachel in the hallway, she ran to the bathroom nearest to Rachel's locker so she could help her clean up. Her heart broke when she saw her best friend sitting on the floor in floods of tears, but before she could even comfort her, Rachel had turned hysterical, screaming for her to leave her alone forever.

She had never been good at fighting for people – for fighting for those she loved – so she left the clothes she had grabbed from the Cheerio's locker room on the floor and walked away from her best friend forever. Even though Rachel had tried to apologize, Santana had never forgiven her, and replaced her Brittany and Puck.

She was almost happy without Rachel. She was almost alive without Rachel. She could survive without Rachel. Santana Lopez was able to survive without Rachel Berry.

(Maybe she missed staying up until midnight and talking about her day. Maybe she missed the way Rachel instinctively knew what she was talking about when it sometimes took more than five minutes for Brittany to understand. Maybe she missed the way they slept in the same bed, always facing each other with their hands entwined. Maybe she missed the way Rachel would sing along softly with the radio while they were doing their homework together. Maybe she missed the way Rachel's cookies melted in her mouth while they watched a movie together, but none of that mattered. She could survive without Rachel Berry).

Rachel Berry is a pain. A complete and utter pain. She doesn't miss her at all.

* * *

**Puck:**

She's the girl from his past.

He's known her for as long as he can remember. His mum met one of her dads at temple, and they've had weekly dinners ever since. He sits next to her every Sunday night and watches her as she daintily cuts into her food, and chews with her mouth closed, and tells funny little anecdotes about her week when his mother asks. Basically, he sits and listens as his mum realizes that Rachel Berry is the perfect Jewish girl, and that he should date her.

That's why he starts bullying her at school. He comes home one night after curfew, smelling of perfume, with a lipstick stain on his shirt, and his mum lays into him. She waited up just so she could see how late he arrived home and when she finds out that he wasn't with Rachel, but with Santana (aka the nasty girl who shut his sister away in her room so they could make out on the couch), she starts to cry. She begs him to reconsider his actions, and tells him that his behaviour in his teenage years has the power to shape the rest of his life. She lectures him for over an hour, before finally letting him go to bed, but he can't sleep all night because of her words running through his head.

He slushies Rachel for the first time the next day.

The surprising thing is that Rachel and her dad's still come over for dinner every Sunday, and she still tells little stories, and his mother still loves her. She sits next to him and politely asks him to pass the sweet corn when it's too far away, and it's like Monday-Friday at McKinley High don't exist.

That's when he starts to think that maybe Rachel deserves more than he's giving her. That's when he has the dream about her, and asks her out, and they make out all the time and it's amazing, but his eyes keep drifting to Quinn and it's just not their time.

She still comes round for dinner every Sunday night.

When Jesse St. James walks into the picture, he realizes that he _wants _her. Like, he wants to hold her hand and take her on dates and become Facebook official. He gets a little lost, sidetracked by Quinn and Beth and his relationship with Finn and then Lauren, but that's the one thing that never really fades away. He _wants _her.

He starts to notice all these little things about her, like the way her eyes lost their sparkle when she gets slushied, or the way her hair curls up at the ends even though she tries to straighten it. He notices the way her bottom lip trembles just a little every time someone in Glee puts her down.

That's when he starts to stand up for her. He'll walk her to class if she's having a bad day, and he makes sure Satan stays off her back most of the time, and he even tells Finn and Quinn when they're being bitchy. She's basically his girlfriend without the perks, and although he likes being the person that's always there for her, he really, really wants more.

So he dumps Lauren and studies hard, because he knows she'll be moving to New York after graduation and he's planning on following her.

It pays off because his mum is proud of him, and after another Sunday dinner, Rachel pulls him upstairs after desert and kisses him, before declaring that she really, really wants to be his girlfriend. He says yes, pretends it's not a big deal, and proceeds to make out with her on his bed.

And at graduation, he's not surprised that they're still together because she's really kind of awesome. Her friendship with Blaine has calmed her down, and she's happier now that Tina and Mercedes consider her a close friend, and her friendship with Santana is slowly being repaired, which means Brittany considers her a best friend, and even Finn and Quinn are being less douchey.

She's always been the girl from his past, and if he plays his cards right (which so far, he is), she'll be the woman in his future.

(Ten years after they leave Lima, she's a huge Broadway success, she has a recording contract and is known as a famous actress and he's writing songs for every decent artist with any sense. On their wedding day, he kisses her softly, and knows that he's the luckiest man alive).


End file.
